Chick flicks are a foreign country to me - they do things differently there. Films like The Holiday with Jude Law and Cameron Diaz or PS I Love You with Hilary Swank - I literally don't understand them and want to hurl objects at the screen. And yet, and yet ...

These films make lots of money from the girls' night out crowd. As fan boys flock to monster movies or geezer gangster flicks, girls watch other girls get the man (who, it seems to me, is usually a total prat, like Gerard Butler or Jude Law).

What are the best chick flicks and what are the worst? Are they a guilty pleasure? Which ones make you cry, which make you vomit?

Thankfully, this week we're covering two films which represent a different type of chick flick - the type men can see without shame and women can be proud of. Cannes winner 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days, is tough but brilliant and its star Anamaria Marinca joins me to discuss life for young women behind the iron curtain.

Things We Lost in the Fire stars Halle Berry in her best role since her Oscar win, with Benicio del Toro, in a nice house with fluffy jumpers and lots of lessons and tears, but all brought together by Danish dogme director Suzanne Bier, who brings her European stylings to a Hollywood slush fest with great, soapy success, the sort you used to get on upmarket American TV series like Thirtysomething.

On the show I also pick out, from the mass of good films coming thick and fast each week, the ones you really need to see and ask: which recent releases have disappointed or misled you, despite the nominations, good reviews, classy casts etc ... let me know.

I'm going for Sweeney Todd, No Country for Old Men, The Savages and Before The Devil Knows You're Dead as absolute essentials, with In The Valley of Elah close in there. There's not a lot of levity about - you'll have to wait 'til Oscar surprise package Juno appears next week ...